Last week I unfortunately found myself at the pediatrician’s office. My son needed a prescription cream, and the doctor needed to fax the prescription to the pharmacy in order for me to pick it up. Being in the communications industry, anytime someone mentions “faxing,” it peaks my interest.
The Role of Faxing in Healthcare
In many offices today, the thought of “faxing” is usually thought of as “archaic” or “old fashioned”. Why would I fax someone if I can just email or message them? In the healthcare industry, however, faxing still rules supreme. It’s secure, familiar, and the choice of communication by many doctor offices, hospitals, and pharmacies today.
That doesn’t mean that the whole office’s communication solution has to be old fashioned as well. You can update your office technology and still have the familiar faxing capabilities you want to maintain.
Enter FAXStation
Sangoma’s FAXStation allows medical offices to reuse their existing fax machines because the FAXStation appliance plugs right into the practice’s fax machine. The clinic will receive cloud-based fax service that will come in over their existing analog line.
Long gone are the days of wondering “Where did the fax go?” or “Did that fax send correctly?” That’s because with FAXStation you can set up fax-to-email notifications and view both incoming and outgoing faxes, resend faxes, and upload documents directly from your computer that need to be faxed out.
It’s well known in the VoIP industry that faxing over SIP isn’t favorable because of the T.38 errors that arise when faxing over SIP. (It’s like the rash that just won’t go away and it’s time to call in the prescription-strength cream.)
FAXStation is the exception because it’s proprietary FoIP (Fax Over IP) setup is specifically designed to address those pesky T.38 faxing errors and provide a dependable faxing experience.
FAXStation is also a “plug-and-play” solution, meaning that it comes pre-provisioned out of the box. It’s as easy as:
- Pick your fax number
- Plug your fax machine into the FAXStation appliance
- Fax your heart out (carefully, under a doctor’s supervision)
How Does It Work?
As illustrated below, the medical employee will use the fax machine as they always have, but the FAXStation appliance will receive that fax over the analog line and send the encrypted message over the internet to the Sangoma data center.
After that the fax will travel over the certified PRI and SIP trunks, through the PSTN, and will arrive to the fax destination via the other medical office’s analog line.
Many medical practices today are making the switch to digital in many ways, but they need to keep a fax machine to communicate with offices that haven’t made the switch yet.
Prescriptions, patient records, and billing information are shared between different clinics or hospitals, and it must remain encrypted for patient privacy. Faxing, although arguably an old-fashioned method of communication, is still prevalent in the healthcare industry because of its private nature.
Sangoma can meet those needs using FAXStation, the most reliable IP fax solution on the market.
Click here to learn more about FAXStation and request a quote today!
